


Minor Species

by DrSteggy



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Veterinarians, Fish, Gen, Veterinary Medicine, animal injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28397184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrSteggy/pseuds/DrSteggy
Summary: The push to 100k in 2020 with the prompt:“you’re a vet and I’m pleading with you to save my goldfish and you’re the first vet I’ve visited to not ask me if I’m sure I don’t want to go and buy another goldfish for three dollars.”
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	Minor Species

**Author's Note:**

> The pandemic turned me into an author and I realized I was 1200 words shy of posting 100k on AO3 this year. There is one story that has been posted but won’t be visible until Jan 2, but I am including it as part of the 100k. I decided to take prompts on Tumblr to get this last short thing done. I got a couple good ones I am stashing aside for the future, but I went with the one that actually happened to me about a year ago:
> 
> I don’t know if you’re a big fan of AUs, but I found this one: “you’re a vet and I’m pleading with you to save my goldfish and you’re the first vet I’ve visited to not ask me if I’m sure I don’t want to go and buy another goldfish for three dollars.”
> 
>   
> I have casually flirted with the AU where Link is a veterinarian (because Farore made the animals, and courage is sometimes more valuable than wisdom in this weird profession.) so this seemed like something I could easily do in short order.
> 
> Names changed, obviously, but this is a mostly true story.

Link was lost in a thread about the merits of continuous versus interrupted suture patterns on body wall closures on the Veterinary Information Network when there was a tap at his office door.

“Heeeeey, doc?” Sidon, one of the better front desk reps, poked his head in the doorway. Sidon doesn’t come to him unless it's something that Link truly needs to weigh in on. Link turned his chair around to face him. 

“There’s a non client on the phone, and, um. Well. She has a fish, and I felt really bad when she told me her story and I thought I’d come ask if you would please see this fish.”

“A fish?” 

Link cared for a variety of species. He had gone to vet school over a love affair with horses, but real world horse practice--or at least the people he had tried it with--hadn’t suited him. He turned to small animals, dogs and cats, and at some point his interests and talents shifted to the minor species. Rabbits and cavies, canaries and Faron parrots, hightail lizards and hot footed frogs. But never fish. 

“A fancy goldfish.”

Never fish? Rarely fish.

This was not the first time Sidon intervened for a fish. The last one was a betta that did seem to improve after troubleshooting the water quality, which pretty much exhausted Link’s fish knowledge base. The owner wrote a very nice letter, including a picture of the betta, at least. He still had it pinned to his memo board. Link said nothing, but stared at Sidon, who was wringing his hands.

“Please doc. She has been trying to get into see a fish doctor in Kakariko…”

“There’s a fish vet in Kakariko?”

“Apparently. It's got a swim bladder issue, and it's floating, and she says it needs to be sedated and air removed from the swim bladder with a needle, but she just can’t do it herself and she is desperate. The fish isn’t doing well, she says. The fish guy won’t call her back, she has been trying for weeks. She found our website and sees we do exotics, so she thought she would ask.”

Link said nothing.

“I feel bad for this fish, doc.”

Link stared, turning this tale of woe over in his mind. 

“ _ Please _ , doc She says she has stuff you need to sedate the fish, she is just scared to do it herself.”

There’s something in Sidon’s voice that broke Link’s resolve. The fish needed help, and no one else was willing to do it. He was a fool for these cases. Link wasn’t even sure he  _ could _ help, but…maybe?

“Okay, I’ll see her fish, but please tell her that I’m flying by the seat of my pants and that I don’t do a lot of fish. I will  _ try _ to help, but no guarantees.”

Sidon nearly blossomed at this. “Thanks, doc, I’ll tell her. How much time should I set aside?”

“An hour? I need to figure out what I’m doing. Please don’t schedule this for today.”

He clicked out of the suture discussion and typed  _ goldfish buoyancy issue _ into the search bar on VIN.

********************************************

There’s a lot about being a veterinarian that felt like performance art to him, and he was prepared to sound confident and reassuring. If he seemed like he knew what he was doing, he could convince a stranger to trust him with a beloved pet. It took years of stumbling through history taking to figure this out, but it's become a skill he is proud of. He was ready to dazzle this fish owner today. His confidence slowly drained away as he listened to his tech relate the history on the goldfish, as it's very obvious that the owner is much better at fish than he is.

“So,” Saria says. “The fish is a ten year old female fancy goldfish named Jabu Jabu and his owner has had her five years. She was originally a rescue- the owner rescues fish regularly, she is really into them, and this one is a favorite. Anyway, owner has tried a high fiber diet, and a course of metronidazole and is very careful to keep the water temperature consistent. She does water changes every three days.”

One by one, all his planned recommendations had already been tried and had failed. 

“She brought clove oil, which apparently you use to sedate fish. You can sedate a fish?”

“Yeah, that is the plan today, though I’m not using clove oil.”

“Interesting,” Saria tapped her pen to her lips for a moment before continuing. “She also has extra water from the fish’s tank, and something called stress coat, and she brought a couple stainless steel bowls. It's like she was all ready to do this herself and has just brought you everything.”

There’s a tiny wiggle of relief as he forgot to ask the owner to bring extra water so as not to shock his patient. He had a better option than clove oil, at least. Clove oil was an easily obtained fish sedative, but it was also finicky and hard to titrate, and often resulted in a dead fish. He was delighted to learn that he could use injectables he was already familiar with and had settled on alfaxan. It was a drug he preferred in a number of species. Well, mammals. But it was safe for hearts, even sick ones, and apparently well tolerated by fish. He could dazzle the owner with this bit of expertise, at least. 

“Anyway, she has everything in the waiting room, do you need her in an exam room?”

“No, I’ll go chat with her.”

It's Saturday afternoon, and there were two other vets working, so the waiting room was busy. There was a pretty blonde woman sitting at the end of one of the benches staring worriedly at a five gallon bucket that seemed to have a tube coming out of the lid. She was surrounded by tote bags with steel bowls and a huge pitcher of water. This must be Jabu Jabu’s owner.

He straightened himself and walked up to her, stepping into what he thinks of as his doctor character. It goes with the white coat and the stethoscope around his neck. 

“Hello!” he kept his tones warm and welcoming. “I’m Dr. Link and you must have a goldfish in that bucket.”

She looked up and smiled. “Yes, hello, I’m Zelda.” She extended a hand in greeting that he took and gave a quick shake. She leaned over and popped the top off the bucket. “Here’s my girl.”

Link dropped to a squat to get a closer look at the occupant. The tube in the top went to a battery operated aerator in the bucket. A black fancy goldfish, one with a hunched up back and bulging eyes, floated on its side at the surface of the water. It's nearly the size of his palm. The fish opened its mouth, taking half gasps of water. The scales on the side exposed to the air look ulcerated to him. He is probably anthropomorphising, but the fish doesn’t look very happy to him.

“Thank you for taking a look at her,” says Zelda. “It is so hard to find a veterinarian who will see a fish. Most of them hung up before I could even ask. I know people think its just a goldfish, and I could get another one anywhere. She is a special fish to me, and I can’t replace her.”

His eyes drifted from the bucket to her face. She was still looking at her fish, eyes soft and full of concern. It's easy to love a dog. Dogs have been selected to be friends for millenia. Its easy to love a cat, or anything else that is furry and warm and wants to cuddle. Not everyone sees the charm in a creature that cannot be touched, doesn’t want to be touched, and would sooner dart from your company. It's easy to forget a fish is a living creature, with its own needs and desires, and not just a decoration or furniture. 

Not everyone will look at a fish as an individual, or worry about what it needs or wants. The fish still matters, and this one matters to this person. He was going to help this fish as best he can.

“I’ll do what I can, and we will keep our fingers crossed,” he said. “I’d like to use a different anesthetic though…”

She interrupted him “If you’ve got a better option, please do what you think is best. You’re the expert.” she paused and considered her next thought, as he marveled that he doesn’t feel like an expert at all.

“I have had these fish with this problem before and it's terrible for them. It's very stressful and they die in a bad way. I don’t want that for her.”

This fish matters. She matters to this person. 

He mapped out his plan for Jabu Jabu. Radiographs to see what the swim bladder looked like, as fancy goldfish often had internal anatomy as odd as their exterior. Sedation with alfaxan. Removal of whatever air he can retrieve. He asked if he should wear gloves to handle her and Zelda said it didn’t really matter, either was stressful for the fish. He read as much as he could from other veterinarians on VIN. One of them reported removing an insane sounding 11 milliliters of air from a fish. Everyone responding to the thread seemed impressed, so he was prepared for it to be that much. He reached out and took the handle of the bucket. 

Zelda looked at him squarely. “I trust you with her. Please take care of her.”

“I will take the best care of her I can.” He meant it. He always meant it.

His professional resolve lasted until he was behind the door to the treatment room. He brought the bucket into the radiology room, where it’s dark and quiet, and less stressful for the fish.

“Ok,” he turned to Saria, who trailed behind him. “We are taking images of this fish.”

“How?”

“Get me a plastic bag, one of the ones we send the lab samples in. The fish and water go in the bag, then we take our images”

They shot and the images showed a normal shaped, if enlarged, swim bladder for a goldfish. Link felt a tiny thrill recognizing this. The trick with the bag worked. It’s a new tool in his arsenal. The other doctors and techs working filter through to see the images. No one had seen a fish x-ray before. 

He set up for the next part of the procedure, gathered the things he would need so they are at the ready when he needed them, running over his plan one more time. He memorized everything he needed to do, down to drug doses, which are more easily calculated for fish.

A small crowd of his coworkers have gathered to watch.

“How does it work?” asks one of the other doctors. “Do you inject the fish? How do you monitor it?”

“The drugs go in the water, and it’s a dose per volume of water. You,” he pointed to Saria. “Are going to run anesthesia by taking a syringe and sucking up the water with the drugs in it and squirting it into the fish’s mouth so it goes over the gills. We want only her operculum-the cover over the gills-moving.”

He used one of the bowls to prepare the anesthetic bath and put another bowl of water in the sink near his work area. He scooped Jabu Jabu out of her bucket and placed her into the anesthetic bath. He put the aerator in with her and waited. The fish floated and wiggled, trying to get deeper in the shallow bowl. After a few minutes, she stopped wiggling and just her gills move. He gave the fish a poke and she doesn’t swim away.

_ Ok, now. _

He took a butterfly needle, which has a thin plastic tube attached to it. The tubing gave more freedom to move than a straight needle on a syringe does, and one often needs to be ready to move with animals. He selected a 20 milliliter syringe and attached it to the tubing of the butterfly.

He looked to Saria, who pushed water into Jabu's mouth with a smaller syringe. 

“Here we go.”

He knew about where the swim bladder should be, but the needle just felt like it went into flesh. There’s no give like it should have. He pulled back on the syringe. Negative pressure. It’s not the right spot. He tried redirecting the needle and it doesn’t feel different. He did suck a little blood into the tubing. The audience went quiet and he felt tension rises in him a little. 

It doesn’t feel like he is helping much at all.

He pulled the needle out and Saria looked at him, questions on her face, as she continued to push water over the fish’s gills. He ran a finger over Jabu’s swollen body, gently probing the ulcerated areas, trying to feel the bladder under them. Finally, he settled on a new spot, opened a new butterfly, attached it to the syringe, and plunged ahead, threading the needle between scales.

This time, he felt the tip of the needle pop into a new space. It's subtle, but as soon as he felt it, he pulled back on the plunger of the syringe in his left hand. This time it came back easily, so he pushed the needle a little more forward and continued to draw. Saria’s eyes widened and Jabu’s abdomen slowly collapsed. He stopped when he got negative pressure again.

He has removed seventeen milliliters of air from the fish.  _ Seventeen. _

Seven. Teen. 

His audience was also impressed with this volume. There was more than one utterance of  _ holy shit  _ as he held up the syringe. He decided to call it good.

“Okay, we should recover her, I don’t think we are gonna do much more than that.”

He scoopec Jabu Jabu up again and moved her to a stainless steel bowl in the sink. He asked for the aerator, and he dragged her backwards by her tail through the bubbles, just as someone on VIN had suggested if resuscitation were needed.

Jabu Jabu did not move as he did this. 

He was conscious of appearing outwardly cool, but his heart rate was a little quick, and he felt his shoulders trying to crawl toward his ears as he silently willed the fish to move.

She did not.

Saria asked quietly “Is there something I can get for you?” She saw the fish was not moving either. He was already doing everything he knew to do. He pulled Jabu backwards through the bubbling water again.

Just as his blood pressure started to rise, Jabu Jubu gave a jerk and freed herself from his fingers. She still didn’t quite sit right, her body still had a tilt, but she was all the way under the water, and wriggled her flowy tail fins, trying to sink deeper. Link let out the breath he had not realized he was holding, relief flooding his body like a plunge into cold water on a hot day. He watched the big black goldfish with the hunched body and the bulging eyes swim in her steel bowl for a few minutes, glad she was safe and maybe a little better than before she came in. Once he was satisfied with her recovery, he moved her back into her bucket, dropped the aerator in and closed the top. He headed out to the waiting room to talk to Zelda.

The next day, Zelda sent three short videos of Jabu Jabu in her home aquarium, listing to her side but swimming in any direction she wanted. Link couldn’t place a finger on why he felt it, but the fish looked happier to him than when he met her the day before. He sent a text back thanking Zelda for the update.

_ I’m so happy she’s doing better! Thank you again! :) _

He smiled at the text. He didn't always get updates on cases, even when he called to ask. Sometimes he left three or four messages before he gives up and just never finds out how that dog with what was probably a bleeding disorder did, or if the rabbit who stopped eating ever ate again. He used to spend a lot of time worrying about these animals, used to stay up at night and think about them. Eventually he learned to let them go. He still sometimes reminded himself it didn’t make him a bad doctor to do that. It made him a better one for the next sick creature, because he could give it his entire focus. 

He still liked to know if he helped or not, and if he didn’t, he wanted another chance to try. 

A month later, he was in Castletown for a continuing education conference. He met with classmates where they spent a night over dinner and drinks, telling stories about wild cases and wilder clients. He won the night telling about how he sedated a fish successfully. He had not been the smartest in his class, and he hadn’t gone to vet school intending to ever touch a fish, or, really, anything that wasn’t a horse. It's pleasing to hear colleagues marvel at what he has been able to do. 

It was a little past noon, three months later, when his phone dings with a text message from Zelda:

_ Hey doc, I just wanted to let you know Jabu Jabu passed away this morning. Thank you for all your help with her. We definitely tried our best and unfortunately these fancy goldfish are prone to swim bladder issues. If any of my other fish ever need help I’ll be sure to bring them to you. _

He texted his sympathies. He did feel a little sad at the news. This fish mattered, and it is sad that she has gone out of the world. He helped her have a better death than what she might have otherwise, and even when it is sad, it is still good work.

His desk phone rings. It's Sidon. 

“Hey doc? There’s a non client on the phone with a goldfish that they think is sick. Would you see it?”

Maybe he will start to see fish, officially.


End file.
